The Foxhole

Riddles in the Dark
The game takes place in The City, a sprawling metropolis caught between the Medieval and the Victorian where steampunk technology and genuine magic war for control. Within this hub of civilization, the forces of Order and Chaos are locked in perpetual conflict while a third faction, caretakers of Balance, watch from the shadows and manipulate events as they see fit. However, the very same prophecies that have guided them in the past also foretell the end of the world, and history has just entered its eleventh hour.

The Order of the Hammer—whose members are known as Hammerites or just simply Hammers—represent order and progress, and are the source of the steampunk technology. They’re akin to an Old Testament religion, fire and brimstone, and are the major power within The City. The Order has been weakened, however, following an internal schism, and their influence is not what it once was. They’ve undergone a slight modernization in an effort to keep with the times, but it’s questionable whether they’ll ever hold the same kind of power they did in the old days.

The Pagans are the sworn enemies of the Hammers, representing chaos and nature. They’d like nothing more than to tear down The City and return to living off the land. Even more so than the Hammers, however, they’ve suffered losses in recent years, and lack the strong leadership they were once renowned for. Beastmen—half human/half animal creatures that were once the foot soldiers of the Pagan cause—have become something of a rarity. To cope, the Pagans themselves have begun to infiltrate abandoned buildings and train in preparation of open warfare with the Hammers.

The Keepers are the secret society tasked with making sure neither the Hammers nor the Pagans get too much power. They use a special kind of magic derived from glyphs that keeps them hidden and allows them to predict the future. This is the first game in the series to really explore the organization, and we find out they are not as infallible as we’ve been led to believe. Their ability to accurately see into the future has given them something of an ego, as they believe they can somehow alter their own fate now that their time has come.

The protagonist and player character is a master thief by the name of Garrett. He used to be a member of the Keepers, but his cynical, self-serving outlook on life led him to go his own way. He’s played a rather unwilling part in the Keepers’ prophecies in the past, but has come to accept more responsibility for his role in the grand scheme of things. The doomsday prophecy, however, points to a culprit within the Keepers themselves, and Garrett makes for a handy scapegoat if nothing else. It doesn’t help that the newly elected First Keeper has had a strong dislike of Garrett from the outset.

The plot of the game—Garrett’s efforts to discover the true meaning of the prophecy and unmask the “brethren and betrayer”—is compelling, even if it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the series’ flagship effort. Watching Garrett act like more of a Keeper than the Keepers themselves is an amusing reversal, especially considering his wit is as dry, sharp, and sarcastic as ever. My only wish is that the plot had been foreshadowed in the original games. An unfair claim it may be, but justifiable in light of the plot’s significance to the fabric of the game world.